AUTOMATION IN AGRICULTURAL EQUIPMENT AND TECHNOLOGY
Agriculture is old as a humankind. According to increasing of the human population agriculture also should be developed. Because food is a main need of the human which is provided through the agriculture. If world population is increased, the amount of the agricultural workers is decreasing.it is a steady decline with implying a more dire labor shortage in the agriculture industry. Therefore, more countries spell more attention to agriculture, adding new technologies and innovations to the farming. Farmers also aspire to produce high quality crops in greater quantities but the number of labors are not available much as in this situation.so that only alternative is more efficient tools and technologies, handled by less amount of people or without human intervention. Through this situation automation becomes an important part in agricultural field.
What is automation in agriculture?
Automation is wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes. It is a great opportunity to farmers because they can do their works more efficiently without human intervention usage and without tired and boring. In addition, increasing reliability and precision. This is also associate with the ‘smart agriculture’. And also automation in agriculture isn’t limited to the using machines. It includes upgrading conventional and introduce modern agricultural tools, machines and using modern technology which is achieved by adding sensors and controls with proper intelligence and recognizance that is data collecting. It makes farms more efficient and automates the crop or livestock production cycle. Internet of Thing (IoT) also can be joined with this technology for remote sensors and control them to obtain a resource delivery optimization and high efficiency of precision agriculture both of which spell greater yields of higher quality crops.
Agbots
Today there are so many automated equipment has been introduced. Such as drones, combines, automated tractors to fruit picking robots. Those
agriculture robots are called as Agbots. Agbots are main part of the automation. Many processes which are related to the agriculture are done by agbots. Such as ploughing, planting, harvesting, irrigation, weeding, soil maintenance, breeding selection, seed and fertilizer management, irrigation control down to the prediction of the field, crop treatments, and etc. Agbots are combined to; monitor, predict, cultivate, harvest plant without the intervention of human whatsoever.
Farmers up their productivity with automation systems
With applying this technology, farmers can vary the seed population and nutrients to the field, maintain optimize conditions (soil moisture, soil fertility, pH condition) and also reduce diseases of crops and livestock also using precision tools and techniques. And also harvest lost, labor costs, can be reduced. It saves money as it reduces the use of fertilizers, water, nutrients and other inputs unnecessarily. However, this system will be friendly with farmers spending less time in the field and more time at computers analyzing data and diagnosing problems.
In the future…
Researchers have found that in developed countries so many farmers have adopted to this automation technology with updating technologies. But we are only at an early stage of the automation. However, it will be a challenge to other countries because of high cost for equipment, tools and if there any damages, repairing cost also high. If those challenges are overcome, no doubt, automation will be a best friend of farmers by searching their own fields through their mobile phones.
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